[karlson]

I played this hand in a club game the other day.

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The defense starts with the ♦2 to the ♦A and the ♦3 back, lefty following with the ♦6. If you cash the ♥K, lefty follows with the ♥2 and righty with the ♥8.

[mtvesuvius]

Spoiler

Clearly the solution is to hook the ♥6, since LHO has probably has two low spades, and could over-ruff dummy if you play a heart to the ace. I don't think that it's a reasonable play (unless given as a play problem or Double Dummy). At the table I'd play a heart to the ace, succeeding as long as ♥ were 2-2, or 3-1 where the hand with 3♥ also has 3♠. Cool hand

[Phil]

mtvesuvius, on 2010-November-10, 07:48, said:

Clearly the solution is to hook the ♥6, since LHO has probably has two low spades, and could over-ruff dummy if you play a heart to the ace. I don't think that it's a reasonable play (unless given as a play problem or Double Dummy). At the table I'd play a heart to the ace, succeeding as long as ♥ were 2-2, or 3-1 where the hand with 3♥ also has 3♠. Cool hand

Paging Han...

If you finesse the heart, you are giving yourself a 2/3 chance. There's no advantage to LHO making the blocking play of the 7 here since we only need one dummy entry. (I think) its actually better than 2/3 given that diamonds are likely to be 6-3.

If you play for the heart drop, you'll make 1/3 of the time when it matters, plus a little more (?) than half the time when LHO has 3+3 in the majors. While it seems close, the hook looks better to me.

[mtvesuvius]

Phil, on 2010-November-11, 10:21, said:

Paging Han...

If you finesse the heart, you are giving yourself a 2/3 chance. There's no advantage to LHO making the blocking play of the 7 here since we only need one dummy entry. (I think) its actually better than 2/3 given that diamonds are likely to be 6-3.

If you play for the heart drop, you'll make 1/3 of the time when it matters, plus a little more (?) than half the time when LHO has 3+3 in the majors. While it seems close, the hook looks better to me.

Good point. Still not sure if it's best to play a heart and plan to hook, but leaning toward yes as well. Still need to be careful to play a low spade off dummy in case RHO has a stiff King.

[Phil]

mtvesuvius, on 2010-November-11, 10:26, said:

...Still need to be careful to play a low spade off dummy in case RHO has a stiff King.

Yes!

[karlson]

I think it's clear to hook. Phil mentioned it implicitly, but I just wanted to emphasize the restricted choice on 87 doubleton.

Since diamonds are basically known 6-3, we can talk about specific shapes. Hooking wins against 3163 on our right, while rising wins against 2263 and breaks even against 2164. 3163 looks more like a 2♦ bid to me than 2263 anyway. But to a first approximation we just need 3163 more than half as likely as 2263.